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Which tool gives the most accurate backlink data?

by Clojo
3 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi there,

I was wondering if anyone could help.

I am relatively new to internet marketing. I hear that Yahoo Site Explorer is being shut down, and so the data on there is probably not that accurate. What tool would you say gives you the most accurate backlink data? I have been using Market Samurai and that uses SEO Majestic and Yahoo, and the difference in the data is A LOT! So what is more accurate.

Unfortunately SEO Majestic is not free, and I can't afford it just yet, can anyone recommend anything free that is better?

Many thanks in advance.

Clojo
#accurate #backlink #data #tool
  • Profile picture of the author sgsmorgan
    Originally Posted by Clojo View Post

    Hi there,

    I was wondering if anyone could help.

    I am relatively new to internet marketing. I hear that Yahoo Site Explorer is being shut down, and so the data on there is probably not that accurate. What tool would you say gives you the most accurate backlink data? I have been using Market Samurai and that uses SEO Majestic and Yahoo, and the difference in the data is A LOT! So what is more accurate.

    Unfortunately SEO Majestic is not free, and I can't afford it just yet, can anyone recommend anything free that is better?

    Many thanks in advance.

    Clojo
    Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings but (I posted this elsewhere but it's pertinent here as well)...........



    pssst, wanna know the real rason why you can't see them or when you do the results differ wildly?

    The answer? Google, soon Yahoo and Bing are all slowly pulling out of the back link reporting side of things. Google already don't report much in the wasy of data and soon the link operand will cease to work completely. Yahoo site Explorer is soon to be shut so that'll be Yahoo out of the scenarion and I guess Bing will follow suit.

    The reason? They don't make any money out of it and can't monetize it, They are not Charities, they are for profit corporations who have been losing a bundle over the whole amount of Resource used for data mining link analyses over the years.

    Just think about it. How much resource you use up on your own site when you try and do a minor search for items and then multiply that over the many billions of web searches carried out every day and then think about the resource required and the costs involved. This is why you can't see any results and the results you will see will shrink over time.

    The other thing abut this is that this of course makes all the data mining back link analyses tools defunct so they won't work either. Why? Well they all mine their data from either Google, Yahoo or Bing as these boys are the only game in town and as such it doesn't matter how fancy their layouts are or whether call themselves after some mythical Eastern Warrior all the results they provide will be junk. The reason for this is that the data they need to process will be corrupted at source.

    The only way round for this will be if they come to some arrangment with Google or Yahoo to datamine their databases and this will cost. The knock on effect of this will be to massively hike the costs that we the consumer would have to pay and as most folks like to operate with cracked copies of these utilities anyway I can't see that happening.

    The solution? Forget about what Back links you can or can't see just get on with looking at your SERPS. If your results are rising in the SERPS then whatever you are doing is working but if your results are falling then change it.

    OK you mentioned about seomajestic. To be honest with you as I have said, I don't care how glorious the name is it still won't work as the source of the data is the problem., not how they arrange the data when they get it.

    The bottom line is that you want toknow how many links etc are in Google, Yahoo and BiNG. Well if they won't play ball and provide the data then you are screwed. It doesn't matter how nice the name is it's still going to be corrupted junk as you've found out.

    The only difference will be if SEOMajestic (which I presume has something to do with MajesticBot or something like that - the bane of many a webmaster in useless bandwidth consumption) does a deal to mine accurate data from the main indexes otherwise it will never be true or remotely accurate.

    To datamine of course will cost and therefore the end user costs will rise and will we all pay? I think not either.
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    • Profile picture of the author BacklinkExcellence
      sgsmorgan, good post.

      I've seen sites rank highly in very competitive niches with a hand full of backlinks and several similar things. It's just so easy to manipulate/inflate the link count and hide your tracks. There is no benefit for search engines to show every single link passing on juice and as time goes on they will show less and less and eventually shut it down like Yahoo is about to do soon.

      As far as SEOmajestic goes, they have their own spider that does the link checking so it's not dependent on a Google/Y/B API, therefore it's a paid solution for the exact reason you stated: data mining requires lots of resources. However, nothing is perfect. Some links that SEO majestic shows can't be found in the big 3 and vice versa. There is no perfect tool that shows the "most accurate" backlink data.
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      • Profile picture of the author sgsmorgan
        Originally Posted by BacklinkExcellence View Post

        sgsmorgan, good post.

        I've seen sites rank highly in very competitive niches with a hand full of backlinks and several similar things. It's just so easy to manipulate/inflate the link count and hide your tracks. There is no benefit for search engines to show every single link passing on juice and as time goes on they will show less and less and eventually shut it down like Yahoo is about to do soon.

        As far as SEOmajestic goes, they have their own spider that does the link checking so it's not dependent on a Google/Y/B API, therefore it's a paid solution for the exact reason you stated: data mining requires lots of resources. However, nothing is perfect. Some links that SEO majestic shows can't be found in the big 3 and vice versa. There is no perfect tool that shows the "most accurate" backlink data.
        I agree. The problem lies slightly deeper than this and this is why we are headed for meltdown really. If I am concentrating my efforts on marketing to Google then all that mattes to me is not how many links I have as by and large I should know that as I either paid for them or bookmarked them myself etc but rather how many have Google recognised and are giving me the benefit for.

        Now it matters not one jot what service I employ to find that data for me they will all report incorrect and maningless data if the only organisation that knows exactly how my links are doing in Google i.e Google themselves won't play ball and provide the accurate (or in most pubic cases no data at all) data.

        I have a fairly eminent site that is jam packed with quality content and loads of informative pages (or so I'm told) and Google have blessed it with a Page Rank of Zero and publicly tell me I have no back links at all. Looking at the data in Webmaster Tools and it tells me I have 23,000 back links! A bit of a difference I am sure you'll agree.

        Back to MajesticSEO. All it can do is analyse the data it has collated and extrapolate from there. Unless Google are using Majestics data to power their results then it matters damn all. It is meaningless and therein lies the rub. With Yahoo and Bing going the same way then as I said, all the tools will be redundant unless they go to the SE's and pay to play.
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